


Time Heals All

by stargatefan_archivist



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Drama, Episode AU: s08e19-20 Moebius, Episode: s08e19-20 Moebius, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-24
Updated: 2008-12-24
Packaged: 2018-12-17 17:08:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11855985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stargatefan_archivist/pseuds/stargatefan_archivist
Summary: Daniel ponders the nature of time





	Time Heals All

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Yuma, the archivist: this work was originally archived at [Stargatefan.com](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Stargatefan.com). To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [StargateFan Archive Collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/StargateFan_Archive_Collection).

Samantha wrapped her arms around her knees and leaned closer to the fire. The heat of the day had gone with the sun and it was colder than most people would think a desert could be. Jack had already gone into their tent, but she wasn’t ready to sleep just yet. She took off her glasses and rubbed the dust off with the sleeve of her robe. 

As she replaced them, she looked across the fire at Daniel. He was leaning against a rock and staring into the fire, his eyebrows raised, and a strange little smile on his face.

“What are you thinking about, Daniel?”

“Life. Lives. Time…” 

“What do you mean?” He looked relaxed… in a way she wasn’t used to seeing, but those weren’t thoughts that sounded like they would be good ones, not with all he’d lost.

Daniel looked away from the flames, toward her. “I was thinking that Jack and Sam, the ones from my timeline, aren’t really dead. Teal’c isn’t really dead. I mean… they’re dead, yes, but it’s just temporary. This isn’t real—just an aberration in time that will never have happened.”

Samantha shook her head. “It won’t happen again, but—”

“Oh, I know.” His smile widened. “We’ll always have been here, but we won’t be here again. The timeline will correct itself. Everyone will be alive and while they will have died, they won’t next time.” 

He leaned his head back against the rock, the light from the flames illuminating his face, and that rare smile. “My life here? It’s not a ruined life, it’s an extra one. These years don’t add to my existence, or take anything from it. It’s just a long dusty dream that won’t happen. Even though it has. 

One morning, on the day this started, I’ll wake up, go to work at the SGC, and at some point in the day, in a fraction of a second, we won’t come back here.” He lifted a hand and waved it through the air. “I won’t know that something has changed, that everything is right again, but it will be...” Daniel spread his hands. “This is, but it isn’t.”

Her brow creased as she thought about what he had said, and she looked away. “You have the advantage of knowing you’ll be the same person, continuing your life as you were supposed to. I’ll… kind of cease to exist. She looked at him again. “Although, I will have ceased to exist long before that, in the sense of being alive—and I will have existed, because I’m here.” Samantha shook her head.

“You’d like who you’ll be. Sam was, will be, a wonderful person… Uh, not that you’re not now. I mean… You’re not that different… Ugh.” His eyes squeezed shut and he brought his hand up to cover his face. “Sorry.”

Samantha had to laugh. She’d never heard Daniel paint himself into a corner that way, and truthfully, she didn’t want to think about the nature of her existence. She didn’t want to spoil this mood. It was so very nice to see Daniel this way—relaxed instead of tightly wound, open instead of withdrawn. Smiling…

When he heard her laugh, he peeked between his fingers and seemed to decide that it was all right to continue. He lowered his hand and reached around the rock for the jug of fruity Egyptian beer that he’d set away from the fire. “If this is an extra life, then I’ll just use it to learn everything I can. Too bad I won’t be able to share any of it. I could leave something behind that would make the Rosetta stone look like—”

“You can share it with me, Daniel. If all this is a dream, an extra life, then I’d better make use of it, too. Especially since this will be my only chance to be the person I think I am, because I guess I’m not me, her—this is very confusing.” She laced her fingers together and pulled them tight.

Daniel smiled at her. “Isn’t it though?” He gestured for her bowl and filled it, then filled his own. Eyebrow raised, he lifted his beer. “To time—it actually does heal all things. Remind me, if I forget that, okay?”

“To time… I’ll remind you, Daniel, and you can remind me to take advantage of living another life, one that I won’t live again.”

Samantha took a sip of the beer and watched Daniel drink a toast that he would never make, in the light of a fire that would never burn, with a woman who would not be the one with him. Even though they would be together again somehow.


End file.
